Penn State Football: which returning starters need to step up in 2022?

At least one of the tight ends

Last season, Penn State Football utilized three different tight ends much of the time (not necessarily all at once, but they all played a lot). That trio of Brenton Strange, Theo Johnson, and Tyler Warren had a combined 44 catches for 499 yards and five touchdowns – Strange was the leader in each of those categories.

To put that into perspective, Pat Freiermuth had 43 catches for 507 yards and seven touchdowns in his final full season in the blue and white, and Mike Gesicki had 57 catches for 563 yards and nine touchdowns in his final season.

Now, Freiermuth and Gesicki are two of the best tight ends in school history, so it isn’t fair to expect many others to match what they were able to do, but when the production of three tight ends combined cannot match that production, that’s a problem.

It should certainly be noted that part of the reason for the lack of production was a result of Mike Yurcich not incorporating the tight ends quite as much as what many fans would like, but regardless, all three of them have much higher ceilings than what they showed in 2021.

The trio could also help this offense take a step forward by improving their run blocking. The offensive line absolutely shoulders most of the blame when it comes to that, but the tight ends still have a job to do on running plays; and they left a little something to be desired in that department at times last year.

One of two things needs to happen among the tight end unit to help this offense succeed on a weekly basis; either one guy needs to take a big step forward and emerge as ‘the guy’, or the group as a whole needs to get drastically better.

All of the great offenses of the James Franklin era have featured excellent tight end play, so the performance of the tight ends will heavily influence the performance of the offense in 2022.